Both our introductory workshop as well as Dr. Amanda Visconti’s piece emphasized the complexity in identifying what makes a project something that falls under digital humanities. The key components, however, come down to an openness of the project to use digital tools in order to facilitate humanistic research. As we have discussed in class, such openness comes from several different angles. Not only must a project be accessible to the public, but it also must be open to feedback and critique. Visconti builds on this idea even more, using Document the Now and the Infinite Ulysses digital edition as digital humanities projects that build a community around the project, revealing both steps to their processes and setting up ways for their audience to communicate both with them as well as each other. As Visconti says, she values Digital Humanities for valuing interdisciplinarity and her connectedness to the community.
My DH tries to build on that same level of openness to the community through its collaboration. Gettysburg College’s Digital Humanities Fellowship is teaching me how to use digital tools effectively and giving me the space to complete my project, but there is no way I would have been able to pursue my project as effectively without the work that Dickinson College has done with the LGBT Center of Central Pennsylvania. Their work in documenting and digitizing the stories of LGBT people throughout the local area has been critical to spreading their stories, and my research is simply building upon those stories and boiling them down into a format that is easier to access.
My DH is also experimental in terms of what I will accomplish on a personal level. While I’m not treading any new ground in terms of digital tools, they are nonetheless very new. Visconti and everyone else involved in Digital Humanities has emphasized the importance of failure and trying new things. Learning digital tools and opening myself up to website design and data visualization is a whole new world, and DH has welcomed me into the fold eagerly.
Visconti’s piece has not changed much of what I learned throughout the first week, especially the first workshop. Instead, it has built upon the ideas of connection and collaboration that we agreed upon in our workshop and applied it further. She celebrates the idea that digital humanists value “a variety of skills and professional roles,” noting that all scholars are credited. While the space is not completely perfect, the attitude towards community and collaboration is something I value as well in my DH.
As Visconti has said in the beginning of her piece, my DH is rooted in the humanities both as a primary source and as a mode of inquiry. One of my central questions I will ask throughout my research is simply, “How are the language and tone shifting in each article?” Journalists are human, and they have their own biases. Part of my project involves analyzing where this bias will shine through and possibly discovering patterns between my sources.
My DH will be an effort in collaborating with both the local community and other people within the Digital Humanities Fellowship to perform humanistic research and learn digital tools along the way.
One reply on “What is DH?”
Community and collaboration, good to see these here. I think we definitely want the cohort aspect of the fellowship to come through, and in some ways, go beyond “my DH” to “our DH.” In this sense, we all open ourselves a bit to critique as to what we collectively create and define during this summer. I know for sure that each summer I connect with each cohort differently, and even within each cohort, establish different relationships with each fellow. I’m glad to be a part of this community, for sure!